


We'll Meet Again

by almina



Category: Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 20:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10343961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almina/pseuds/almina
Summary: Death was not the end but the beginning





	

Desmond felt someone staring at him.

He turned his head on the pillow and looked around his left arm which was tractioned up to postion shattered bones and drain the edema.

Smitty looked well and handsome, his uniform clean and pressed. How? Last time Desmond had looked on that wellmade face Smitty's pupils were dilated and fixed. Bad sign. Really bad. Desmond had brought him down the cliff face anyway.

“Are you a ghost?”

“Yes, Des, part of the spirit world now.”

“I brought you down, I thought you were dead, but I couldn’t bear to leave you up there.” 

“I’ll never leave you now." 

“You’re really a ghost Are there a lot of you?” 

“All over the tent. Can’t you see them?”

“Only you.”

Smitty grinned. “I like that. Eyes only for me.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and Desmond felt the mattress sag. Maybe Smitty had lived and was playing a joke. That would be just like him.

“No joke,” Smitty said. “My body is dead. But I was with you up on the ridge during the second assault. I put that rifle stock within reach so you could splint your arm with it. There was this sniper who kept getting you in his sights, but then his rifle would jam. He aimed it at someone else and it worked just fine. Then he picked up his dead buddy’s gun. Put the sights on you again, and that rifle jammed too.” 

Desmond looked bewildered. “Someone sure got me.”

Smitty leaned across Desmond, touched his left arm and the pain fell away.

“Not him. I put it in that Jap’s head that there was a flamethrower on the way. I hate those things. He took off. Didn’t have to kill or even hurt him, just convinced him there was someplace else he would rather be.”

“Smitty, Smitty.” Desmond reached his right hand to Smitty’s scalp stroked it and ruffled the hair.

“Looking for a head injury?” Smitty thought that was funny.

Desmond nodded. 

“You’ve changed so.”

“Damn right I've changed.. I’m dead.”

Desmond did not take offense at the damn. 

“This is a dream that you came back.”

“No dream. I’ve always kind of liked you after you refused to take that easy shot I gave you. I deserved it. Then you did this thing on Hacksaw when you were taking me to the cargo net. Gunfire all around us and you kind of hunched over me, so that any bullet that got me would have to go through you. No one else would have done that or even thought about it.”

Desmond thought that Smitty deserved respect for showing his dislike openly at the beginning, standing on the deed, but he had never participated in the gang abuse. 

“If my body had lived, I would have arranged to run into you now and then but as it is I am going to trail you around. Always. Think of me sometimes.”

Smitty swayed. “I’m getting tired. Haven’t got this materialization thing down yet.”

Dsmond grabbed his wrist as he went transparent. “Don’t go.”  
He patted the mattress.

“You can sleep here.”

Smitty put a very unghostly expression of horror on his face. “People will see the sainted Desmond Doss in bed with an army buddy. The world will come to an end.”

Desmond shrugged. “Not a major worry.”

“A few people can see ghosts.”

“But they will not say anything. It will sound like they’re trying to section 8 their way home”

Smitty lay down. Desmond felt the wamth, the comfort of a human body, but he was not at all crowded in that narrow bed.


End file.
